‘Very anomalous objects’: Pentagon reveals bizarre UFO sightings under investigation

The head of the Pentagon’s UFO investigation office has shared details of several strange encounters “we can’t explain” in Senate testimony.

The head of the Pentagon’s UFO investigation office has shared details of several strange encounters “we can’t explain” in a US Senate hearing.

Dr Jon T. Kosloski, director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), appeared before the Senate Committee on Armed Services on Tuesday where he revealed that while several popular videos had been officially debunked by investigators, a number of bizarre encounters reported by credible witnesses including police and government workers remained unexplained.

“To be clear, AARO does not believe every object is a bird or balloon or UAV — we do have some very anomalous objects,” he told senators.

Dr Kosloski highlighted “three cases that merit analysis we’re working on right now”.

AARO director Dr Jon T. Kosloski appears before the US Senate. Picture: Supplied

“The first one was brought to us by a law enforcement officer out west, where he observed a large orange orb floating several hundred feet above the ground a couple miles away,” he said.

When the officer went to investigate the location below the orb, he saw a “blacker than black object” on the ground in the well-lit area.

“He said it was about the size of a Prius, four to six feet wide, and as he got 40 to 60 metres away from the object it tilted up about 45 degrees and then it shot up vertically, he says 10 to 100 times faster than any drone he’s ever seen before, and it did that without making a sound,” Dr Kosloski said.

“Just as it left his field of view through his windshield, it emitted very bright red and blue lights that illuminated the inside of his vehicle as brightly as if someone had set off fireworks or street flares just outside his vehicle. So that’s anomalous because of the size of the vehicle with the great acceleration. When he came back to investigate that area he found no disturbance of the ground beneath it.”

He said a second case occurred in the southeast United States, where two cars of government contractors were leaving a US facility at around 9am.

Most resolved cases were determined to be balloons. Picture: AARO

“They looked up in the sky and saw a large metallic cylinder about the size of a commercial aeroplane, and it was stationary,” he said.

“They observed that there was a very bright white light behind or around the object, they saw it stationary for 15 to 20 seconds and then it disappeared. Obviously an object that large stationary, unless it’s a blimp, is unusual. But then disappearing, we can’t explain how that would happen.”

Dr Kosloski did not share any evidence of the alleged sightings, after earlier presenting detailed analysis pouring cold water on several popular UFO videos including the famous 2017 “GoFast” clip.

GoFast, one of three videos captured by fighter pilots first made public in 2017 and later officially released by the US Navy, appeared to show an object “flying very fast over the water very close to the water”.

“Through a very careful geospatial intelligence analysis using trigonometry, we assess with high confidence that the object is not actually close to the water but is rather closer to 13,000 feet,” Dr Kosloski said.

“A trick of the eye called parallax makes it look like the object is moving much faster.”

The famous ‘GoFast’ video has been debunked. Picture: YouTube

Committee chair, Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, said despite the debunking it was “important to acknowledge ongoing public interest in the Nimitz incident, the Gimbal video and other prominent UAP cases”.

A second video, filmed by a Customs and Border Patrol aircraft in 2013 near an airport in Puerto Rico, was thought to depict a “transmedium” object moving from the air into the water and then back into the air.

Dr Kosloski said the effect was actually a trick of the infra-red camera “where the temperature of the water is equal to the temperature of the object and the camera can no longer distinguish between the two”.

“We assess that it was actually flying over the airport the entire time,” he said.

“We assess that the object, likely a pair of balloons or sky lanterns, was floating at about seven knots over the airport and descending to about 200 metres.”

Balloons accounted for three quarters of resolved UAP cases since 1996, 16 per cent were found to be unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and 6 per cent were birds, according to AARO data.

The most commonly reported shapes were lights and orbs, making up more than three quarters of sightings.

An object filmed in 2013 over an airport in Puerto Rico. Picture: AARO

“When unidentified anomalous phenomena enter our airspace we need to know about it, we need to identify it, but in order to do that we need to reduce the stigma and credibility challenges associated with these events,” Ms Gillibrand said in her opening statement.

“Our service members, scientists, foreign partners and the general public need to know that their reporting, research and analysis will be taken seriously and acted on in good faith.”

Ms Gillibrand said recent sightings of fleets of mysterious drones near sensitive US military sites including Langley Air Force Base highlighted the ongoing national security concerns caused by unidentified craft.

Republican Senator Joni Ernst said it was crucial to identify UAPs and understand their potential implications, which “could range from technological advancements to potential threats to our national security”.

“Are these phenomena tied to foreign adversaries such as China or Russia, leveraging advanced technologies beyond our current capabilities, or do they represent unknown scientific phenomena that challenge our current understanding?” she said.

“We must answer these critical questions to ensure that our national security is not compromised. It is vital that all agencies work in tandem to aggregate data, identify patterns and develop robust analytical frameworks. Our ability to detect, track and respond to UAPs requires the latest technology and full co-operation from all government branches.”

The US Navy aircraft carrier USS Nimitz. Picture: Elliot Schaudt/US Navy/AFP

The Senate hearing came days after a House of Representatives committee heard testimony — rehashing a number of high-profile public claims — from witnesses about supposed secret crash retrieval programs and other UAP evidence allegedly being illegally withheld from Congress.

The US National Security Act of 1947 requires that secret military and intelligence operations, including special access programs (SAPs), be reported to relevant senior members of Congress.

The Pentagon has previously denied keeping any such programs secret.

“To date, the Department has found no evidence of the existence of any classified UAP program, including any SAP or controlled access program related to UAP, that had not been properly reported to Congress,” Department of Defense spokeswoman Sue Gough said last month.

She referred to the findings of AARO, the new public-facing UFO investigation agency established by the Pentagon in July 2022.

AARO’s first report, released in March, concluded there was “no evidence that any [US government] investigation, academic-sponsored research, or official review panel has confirmed that any sighting of a UAP represented extraterrestrial technology”.

“AARO assesses that the inaccurate claim that the [US government] is reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology and is hiding it from Congress is, in large part, the result of circular reporting from a group of individuals who believe this to be the case, despite the lack of any evidence,” the report said.

During Wednesday’s hearing, Ms Gillibrand noted it had been “widely reported that individuals claiming first-hand knowledge of unreported UAP programs have been reluctant to engage with AARO” and asked Dr Kosloski how AARO would “work to regain their trust”.

“We have been reaching out to a broader community, encouraging folks who had talked to AARO personnel in the past and maybe felt uncomfortable, to come back to us,” he said.

“We’ve met with several of their interlocutors and a couple of first-hand witnesses and we are making great progress in those first-hand witnesses that we have talked to. We hope that more folks that do have information [will come forward].”

[e-mail]

Originally published as ‘Very anomalous objects’: Pentagon reveals bizarre UFO sightings under investigation